I’ve never met a designer with a small library. Some collect books. Others are fanatical with their books, refusing to bend the spines or dog-ear the pages. Designers look at books on design or books that are “well designed.” Designers love books. However, most will read about the thing they love, the thing they do—design. Whether it’s medium, message, form, technology, or history, designers want design-related books. But what about the other genres?
Before we approach the others, let’s consider design first. How a designer came to be constitutes their personal history, their origin and evolution. Designers are made, not born. Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys follows a young graphic designer’s growth and maturation. Kidd paints the picture of an ambitious student who wants to taste greatness. His character fights through school with such passion that’s almost heroic in nature. We each have a story about how we came into design and why we continue. Some like the science plus art. Others appreciate the relationships with clients. A smattering failed as architects. No matter which, it’s a personal tale. Reading about other designers, who aimed for the best, will put your motivations into perspective, and even shape what you do next. It can be fictitious like Kidd’s story, or (auto)biographical. Scan the shelves at Barnes & Noble or your neighborhood library for the big graphic design books—the monographs filled with a lifetime’s work.
Sometimes, these big books will put the designer and their work into a broad historical context that includes cultural, technological, economical, or societal issues and influences. But mostly, they focus on the design artifacts. I’ve witnessed some designers purchase these books to own them and later reference them, even pointing at pages, “I’m doing something like that for the award invitation I’m designing.” These books stimulate designers during times of need. Call it appropriation. Call it borrowing. Call it driving oneself to create. Whatever you call it, it’s part of a process of getting from one point to another. When writers have writer’s block, I’m told that they read or just stare at the ceiling. When designers have creative block, it seems they stare at books filled with design. Those books serve the purpose of making. Designers see what’s possible and are motivated to generate form. Hopefully, it will surpass other design, old design, competitor’s design, peer’s design, design, design, design…
It can get redundant and this is why designers must go elsewhere. Other interests (genres) will broaden the horizon. Books about art shed light on how design can be viewed through a new lens. Sociology develops our understanding of clients. Ecology tells us the significance of being environmentally conscious. Humor shapes our wit. Philosophy provokes examination, questioning oneself and one’s creative actions. Or why create at all?
Examining AIGA’s suggested reading list from 2003, you may be surprised by the wide range of titles: Punk is Not Dead, Montage and Modern Life, Barthes’ Mythologies, In Praise of Shadows, The Film Encyclopedia, or Learning from Las Vegas. And reviewing books from Paul Rand’s library delivers titles like Judaism and Modern Man: An Interpretation of Jewish Religion or On the Old Saw: That May Be Right in Theory, But It Won’t Work in Practice.
Ask yourself, “What was the last book I read?” If the last piece of fiction you read was The Cheese Monkeys, it’s time to look at somebody else’s reading list. If the last piece of non-fiction you read was Looking Closer Four, branching out is okay. Books are important for designers because they assist us in doing, making, and thinking, but when we look outside of design, new genres can yield fresh possibilities.
since imported books are very expensive here in manila and well designed and especially design books doubly so, i collect well designed old magazines. ive got boxes and boxes of them.
On Feb.26.2004 at 02:48 AM